‘Buy & Go’ sale to feature GWR boards and ‘crow’ whistle instruction to footplate crews

GW Railwayana’s‘Buy & Go’auction of general memorabilia on April 24 will include two GWR running-in boards from Puxton & Worle and Flax Bourton, two stations 10 miles apart that were opened by the Bristol & Exeter Railway near Temple Meads. The former was opened as Banwell in June 1841 and renamed in 1922, while Flax Bourton welcomed its first trains in 1860, and both were closed by BR in 1964.

Another GWR sign which is – in modern parlance – equally as‘distressed’as the two station running-in boards, is a wooden‘Whistle one crow the Locking Road’sign with cast-iron letters. Locking Road was a Weston-super-Mare station opened by the GWR in 1914 that closed in September 1964, while‘crow’refers to a form of locomotive whistling operated by the footplate crew.

Other railwayana in the 500-lot auction, which starts at 9.30am and will be live online with no reserves or telephone bids, includes GWR pocket watches and signalling items.